Protocol Magi :ORIGIN / Episode 8

The Pink Flower is the eighth episode of Protocol Magi :ORIGIN.

Characters

 * Mashiro Mitsu
 * Nakajima Shiori / Aubade
 * Oshiro Hanako / Hyacinth
 * Abe Kira / Solstice
 * Hikawa Naomi / Numina
 * Aoyama Anna / Nimbus
 * Minami Mio / Métier
 * Shitto
 * Kashida Miya (Mentioned)

Episode
“…This is so not a good idea.” “Come on! It’ll be fun!” “Well, yeah, if I wasn’t about to jump off a cliff!” “It’s not a cliff. You’re completely safe, I promise!” “How can you say that?! The chords could snap, the harness could be put on wrong- …”

“The chords are not going to snap. The harness was checked by professionals. It’s safe, trust me!” Anna hadn’t heard or listened to her, “the tower could fall over-…” “The tower is securely fastened into the ground,” Mio replied. “You don’t weigh nearly enough to even remotely shift the centre of gravity. It’s safe, I promise!”

“Mio, how can you be calm as cattle about basically jumping off a cliff with no safety ensur-..” “For the last time, it’s safe!” “…-ance, while you freak out over MK8?! HOW?!”

The look Mio sent Anna spoke volumes, and quite certainly was not what someone who didn’t know Mio as well as Anna would expect from the younger girl. “Anna, you are a Magical Girl. Who transformed when you got struck by lightning, can control time, and beat the first monster you ever faced single-handedly – something none of the others can claim – and you are scared of heights? Really? Mitsu would be so disappointed if she knew.”

“Yeah, but I was also hit in the face and didn’t die!” Anna replied. “I couldn’t do that normally!” “…” Mio sighed. “Anna, again, you won’t get hurt.” “The concrete ground down there says otherwi-.. Mio, what are you doing? No, stop! Don’t-.. MioOO!”

Mio had softly pushed Anna, causing her to fall over the edge of the jumping platform. The older girl let out a shriek that sounded suspiciously like “Mio, I hate you so much right now!”, prompting a smile from Mio as she jumped herself, feeling the adrenaline rush get to her head.

Once Mio stopped bobbing up and down from the elastic secured to her harness. “That-.. was not-.. cool”, Anna said. “Ah, sorry,” Mio replied. “I shouldn’t have pushed you, I mean it’s-..” However, before she got further into her apology, Anna interrupted her. “No, don’t start that,” she said. “I just kinda’ would’ve liked to jump on my own, y’know?” “Yeah, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

“But, to be fair,” Anna continued, “I may not have jumped at all if I had gotten to choose, so, I mean, I suppose it was fair.” “What did you think about it?” Mio asked as the snaplink connected to the chord that would pull her back up finally reached her from the operators at the top of the tower. She reached out to it, and locked it to her harness. Anna copied her movement with the chord in front of her.

“Well,” Anna said as they started getting pulled back up. “The adrenaline kick is nothing to sneeze at. I can’t quite explain it, but it’s not entirely bad. Kinda’ like in the middle of one of my games, y’know?” “Yeah?” “So, long story short, we’re good, if you’re good.” Anna smiled, giving a thumbs up. “Yeah!”

In another, far less hospitable place, one malevolent being had sought out another to gloat. Shitto, having caught wind of Kyoei’s recent failure, decided that some “minor” teasing was in order.

“So, how’s that plan going for ya’, Kyoei?” Shitto smirked. “The almighty Kyoei was bested by a novice Magi. What do you think Pandora-sama thinks about that, hmm?” “Please,” Kyoei scoffed, “Which one of us has actually contributed? You have accomplished nothing of value, so you do not have room to speak. And, as a matter of fact, who was it that let said novice Magi awaken in the first place? Quite frankly, who caused that to happen?” “That was a diversion, and you know it,” Shitto stated, crossing her arms. “I have at least done something.” “Yeah, waste Shades.” Kyoei replied, condescending as ever. “Was there anything else you wanted, Shitto, because otherwise, why don’t you run along, hmm?”

“’Waste Shades’? I’ll show you,” Shitto grumbled, vanishing, causing a self-satisfied smirk to find its way onto Kyoei’s face.

Despite Anna’s positive response to Mio’s rather unexpected hobby, she hadn’t been too keen on jumping another time, and as such, the pair decided to leave the facility and go on to their next order of business; walking.

The riverside track was one of the places they frequented during their aimless walks. It had a calming atmosphere, and nothing bad ever seemed to happen there. Not to mention, it was a Saturday, and they had nowhere to be. It was a combination that was meant to be, something the pair had realized several months ago. It was ideal for strolling and just talking about whatever.

“I’m thinking of asking my parents if I can go on the concert in a few weeks,” Mio said. “Kashida Miya’s?” Anna asked. “You’ve been wanting to go to one of her concerts for the longest time, so I’d say go for it!” “Yeah”, Mio replied, “it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while. Do you think the others would like to come too?”

Anna hummed in thought, “I mean, there’s really no-one who dislikes Kashida Miya, and it’d be a fun group activity. If their parents allow it, I don’t see a reason that they wouldn’t want to come.” “So you think it’d be OK to ask them?” “Of course! I mean, the worst thing that could happen, is that they’d not be able to come. They’re not going to hate you for suggesting it. I mean, Kashida Miya may not be my typical cup of tea, but I’ve got nothing against her music either, so I’d love to come!” “Thanks,” Mio smiled. “It means a lot, it really does.” “Don’t worry about it. And I’m sure the others won’t mind you asking either,” Anna replied with a grin. “I mean, it would be kind of a douchy move, if they did. And they’re a lot things, but not douchy.”

“Well, hello there!” A voice called out, alerting them of a new addition to their otherwise empty surroundings. “If it isn’t the newbie and her little buddy!”

The two spun around, and came to face to face with one of the messengers, who was wearing a smirk, her hand already up in front of her with a black pearl hovering before it. “I hope you don’t mind that I take this time to crash your little get-together?”

Anna’s eyes widened when a black flash emanated from the pearl, and tackled her friend to the ground; narrowly saving the both of them from getting hit by the pearl as it shot forward.

The pearl crashed into one of the benches lining the river, causing it first to implode, and then form a Shade.

“This is bad,” Anna breathed, staring at the Shade as they got up again. She placed a hand at the golden accessory with a yellow gem tied to her belt. “Mio, get to safety. Contact the others.” Mio nodded, pulling out her phone, and started running away from the scene in search of a hiding place.

“…And you seriously think I’ll let her do that?” Shitto asked, crouching down, preparing to dash after Mio. She made it up to Anna’s right, but not further, as Nimbus’ hand shot out – aided by her time-warping abilities – and caught her ankle, and threw her back towards the Shade.

Before Shitto made contact with it, however, she twisted around, and thus, landed safely. “Tsk,” she let out, rising up. “You think that makes you strong?” she asked, a scowl on her face.

“I’m not the one that was caught,” Nimbus shot back – which, turned out to be a mistake, as that momentary distraction was enough to allow the Shade to attack her. She managed to avoid its swipe and kick it away, but after that, came another swift attack from Shitto, who punched her into the ground.

“So is this the itty, bitty Magi that intends to stop me?” Shitto asked. “Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is.” Nimbus pushed off the ground, grumbling, “shut up”, and connected a kick with the Messenger. Only, it wasn’t the messenger anymore; The illusion dissolved instantly, and Nimbus only barely managed to dodge Shitto’s oncoming attack from above; only for Shitto to anticipate this, and with a well-placed kick, send Nimbus flying into the river.

Mio gasped, and abandoned her hiding place to rush over to the river bank, hoping to get a glimpse of her friend and, if possible, help. This, of course, meant that the Shade took notice of her, and of course, headed towards her. She turned around at the large thumping sound it caused, and froze at it’s hulking form before her. It aimed a swipe at her, and..

“YOU DON’T TOUCH HER!”

Nimbus came flying out in a spray of water, planted herself between Mio and the Shade, and stopped the attack with her hands. Then, the Shade attempted to attack the her once more, and Nimbus vaguely recognized Mio pushing her out of the way.

Mio didn’t know why she had acted. She didn’t know why she had pushed Nimbus out of the way. Logic would’ve suggested to let Nimbus handle it until some of the others managed to get there, but she evidently didn’t. Something had told her to move. Something had told her that she could.

And that something turned out to be right. A bright pink light exploded from her – sending both the Shade and Nimbus flying in separate directions.

“…You’ve got to be kidding me”, Shitto spoke, not impressed. “Another one? What is with my luck?!”

Where Mio had stood moments before, stood now a Magi. She looked at her glove-clad hands, and then did a once-over of the parts of her uniform she could see. “Whoa,” she spoke. “This is what it feels like?”

When the Shade regained its composure, it once more lunged at the newly awakened Magi. Sensing this, she instinctively jumped, clearing the Shade’s height easily, and a giddy smile found itself onto her face. She let gravity do its thing, and pull her back down towards the ground; Spinning in the air, and landing a powerful kick – pushing the Shade down into the ground.

Nimbus was slack-jawed. She hadn’t anticipated her friend becoming a Magi. Not at all. Then, as the pink dodged Shitto’s attack, Nimbus realized something else. For someone who just had found out about their powers, Mio was good. Mio was really good.

She was able to dodge each attack sent at her with at least a bit of grace – the complete opposite of what Nimbus had found when she first transformed. She was unable to get any hits of her own in though, with Shitto and the Shade managing to dodge with ease. Seeing Mio fight, eventually caused Nimbus to snap back to it, and the yellow Magi balled up her fists, determination filling her own eyes, and she, too, joined the fight once more.

The two magical warriors fought side by side, managing to keep even with both of their adversaries, although Nimbus was forced to rely on her time-warp ability more than she wanted to. “You, uh,” she said, “got any seriously good magical ability?” Nimbus asked her team mate. “’Cause like it or not, I’m unable to get any decent hits!” “Uh,” the Pink Magi replied, “I have no idea. I mean, I assume I have something, but I have no clue what that could be either. You didn’t know either when you transformed for the first time either, right?” “Nope,” Nimbus replied. “And I’d honestly rather forget about that time,” she said, reminiscing of the time when she got a punch to the face.

“Well, I guess it’ll appear in time? If I need it?” the pink Magi replied. “I would assume so,” Nimbus replied. “Maybe Aubade or the others know. They’ve done this longer than me… You seriously pulled a streak of bad luck when you decided me to be the only one to be around you during your first transformation. I’m as much of a noob as you are! I mean, normally, I’m the one with bad luck, but…” “…Didn’t you transform without any Magi around?”

“…Shoot. You got me there,” Nimbus replied. “You told the others to get here, right?” “Uh-huh,” the pink Magi replied. “I did, and they should be on their way.”

Shitto scoffed, mildly miffed, “Oi, are you seriously that stupid?” she asked. “You’re discussing your plans right in front of your enemy. I dislike fighting together with others because of the precise need of that communication…” “Err... I mean, uh, she’s kinda’ got a point?” Nimbus replied, although it came out more as a question rather than a statement as she looked at her fellow Magi.

“They don’t need to keep quiet about it,” a new voice cut in, the owner of which landed a mana enhanced punch to the Shade’s middle section, sending it flying.

“Because at this point,” Hyacinth stated, rising up with a smile on her face, “it doesn't matter.”

“Oh, for the love of-…” Shitto swore, not happy with the appearance of one of the other Magi.

Then she was forced to duck, as metal-booted shoe came out of nowhere and kicked at her. Despite missing, Solstice grinned. “Hiya!” she greeted the other Magi’s. “You doing good?” The pink Magi nodded.

Solstice grinned, punching her own palm. “Let’s do this!”

Shitto tsked, with these two new additions to the fight, things weren’t exactly going according to plan. It was a 4v2 fight – and the newly awakened one appeared, as much as Shitto didn’t want to admit it, to be a natural at fighting.

Someone else who was completely set on the fight, was Mitsu. She had been out on the streets on Hanabi (trying to see if she could find some more info about the past few fights), when she had seen the initial dust cloud caused by the fight. Naturally, she had instantly stopped what she had been doing and started sprinting towards it. After a few minutes of running, she had seen a bright pink light appear at the same place, which could only mean one thing; a new Magical Girl. A sixth one.

This both made her hyped and peeved. Hyped, because there’s a new Magical Girl, and peeved, because most Magical Girl teams consisted of 6 people or less. And, since the pink light meant that it was a new Magi, all those 6 positions were now filled.

Mitsu made her way over the top of the slope leading down to the river, she got in full view of the fight, and like always when she got close to the fights, an awed smile found its way onto her face. And, much like normal, she was too engrossed in the fight already being underway to notice that the Shade had sent a part of the river bank flying at her, in an attempt to distract the Magi.

Which didn’t really work that well, as the final two parts of the team had now managed to get to the scene as well, and Mitsu found herself in the arms of one blue Magi. “…Huh?” Mitsu let out, Aubade having picked her up faster than she had been able to register and jumped out of the way of the various rocks and mud. Mitsu, by reflex, made the mistake of looking down, causing her to let out a startled “eep”, at the sight of how high up they were and clutch tightly onto Aubade’s jacket.

“Seriously,” the Magi asked, “what will it take for you to get it through your thick skull? You have no business here, or near any of our fights. At all.” Mitsu, being to terrified of the height to respond, barely even registered that Aubade had spoken.

“You have no use here,” Aubade stated, putting Mitsu down a safe distance from the river and the fight – ‘safe’ meaning ‘a long enough distance that Mitsu won’t be able to get back in time before the fight was over and the Magi had all left’. “The sooner you wrap your mind around that, the better for everyone.”

The Magi didn’t bother giving Mitsu a chance to respond; she simply turned on her heel, and jumped back towards where the fight was.

While Aubade had busied herself with getting Mitsu out of the way (and the subsequent scolding), Numina had gone straight for the Shade, grabbing it while keeping her motion and hurling it towards Hyacinth, who jumped backwards and kicked it high into the air with both her feet. Appearing above it, Solstice slammed into the Shade, and it went flying back down into the ground with a large crash.

“Let’s finish this quickly,” Aubade spoke once she got back to the actual fight (kicking at Shitto to force her away from Hyacinth in the process). “You deal with Shitto,” she told her fellow Magi. “I’ll take care of the Shade, and then join you.” While she kicked off a force field to send herself flying towards the Shade, blue light already swirling and concentrating in her palm. “Aubade, Cleansing.” At her command, the concentrated blue light shot towards the shade in the form of a beam, before dividing into two streams, both of which circled the Shade, and then seeped into the middle section of the Shade. When it came back out, it pulled the small, black pearl with it, which cracked to dust when the light faded at Aubade’s hand.

Meanwhile, the other Magi quickly got the upper hand over the messenger; it was a 6 versus 1 fight after all, and it was at times like this that Shitto hated that her ability wasn’t always all that offensive. She only barely avoided one attack to instantly be assaulted by another. It really wasn’t a fair fight, and after only a couple seconds, it became pretty clear what would happen if she stayed much longer. So, she did the only thing that was plausible; hightail out of there. She didn’t even bother with a last snarky remark as she vanished.

The seven Magi each landed, knowing this was a victory, in more ways than one – they had a new teammate, and the fight they undoubtedly had one.

“…So,” Solstice stated. “That was fun.” Nimbus protested the statement, “It wasn’t all that fun before you showed up! I was thrown into the river! And then Mio blew me into the rocks over there!”

Cue a sputtering noise coming from Solstice, “you did what?” she asked, looking over to the pink Magi, laughing, “how’d that happen?” “…Well, I, uhm…” “It was when she first transformed,” Nimbus replied, realizing what it sounded like before. “She pushed me out of the way of an attack – which we seriously gotta talk about, Mio, you’re turning into Mitsu – and then this bright pink light exploded from her right before the Shade was able to hit, and both me and it were blown away.”

“And I was too late to see that?!” Solstice asked. “Man, I would’ve loved to see it! I mean, sure, I’d be worried, but holy fudge it must’ve looked comical! Mio, we gotta try to recreate that sometime!” “…It wasn’t really intentional..?” the Pink Magi replied. “I just wanted to help.”

“It’s all really amusing,” Aubade stated, “but before anything, you need a name, Mio. Otherwise, Mitsu’ll somehow show up and hear it. We’re safe right now, because she’ll need to cross the river to get here which will take her some time.”

“Okay?” The Pink Magi spoke. “Do you have any thoughts on what you’d like it to be?” Numina asked. “If not,” Solstice helpfully supplied, “I can give you some suggestions! I mean, I for sure ain’t letting Banana over there pick your name.”

“Hey!” Nimbus replied indignantly. “Bananas are cool!” “Not as a name”, the orange Magi deadpanned. “You’re banned from naming duty.”

“…I was kinda’ thinking Métier?” the pink Magi replied. “I mean, I don’t know why, but I just subconsciously knew what to do, and it seems like a name that fits the ones you guys have?”

Solstice grinned. “Okay, from now on, you’re in charge of naming. Plus, it makes sense. You were really good today, unlike someone else on her first fight.”

“Hey! Stop it!” Nimbus yelled, whacking Solstice (who was grinning up a storm), up the head.

Meanwhile, Mitsu had finally calmed down from the freight of the high altitude that Aubade had put her through, and she had finally noticed how far away from the actual fight the Magi she didn’t see eye to eye with had put her down. And so, she Mitsu was once more able to start with her second favourite past-time: Cursing Aubade and her insistence to foil Mitsu’s plans.

Trivia

 * This episode marks the debut of Mio as her Magi self.